


Marion Ravenwood and the Gorgon’s Tomb

by Daylight_Anthropologist



Category: Indiana Jones Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25717951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daylight_Anthropologist/pseuds/Daylight_Anthropologist
Summary: [Radio Announcer Voice]: "1936-A dig in Egypt unearths a clue to the location of the fabled tomb of Medusa, wherein lies a weapon capable of turning whole armies to stone. Marion Ravenwood, daughter of the great archaeologist Abner Ravenwood and brilliant but undervalued Classicist Miriam Ravenwood, must take on the reluctant task of beating the Nazis to the Gorgon's Tomb. In a world full of intrepid adventurers Marion is aided by...none of them. Instead she has an underpaid nightclub crooner who would rather be anywhere else and a stuffy academic who really should be somewhere else. Gunfights! Sword duels! Cows! All this and more await our heroes in...Marion Ravenwood and the Gorgon's Tomb."
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Trolley Trouble

**Chicago, 1918**

The bombs and bullets had stopped over Europe, but in Chicago they continued unabated. There was a neutral zone around the university, and even the most negligent of hoodlums would not dare commit their crimes near the homes of the professors. Marion knew this, which was why she was making a beeline for the safety of her home, and the gates that surrounded it.

Unfortunately, this beeline was several blocks long and, unlike a bee, Marion had to heed the pedestrians. A rock whizzed past her ear. Somewhere in the back of her mind that was funny. Maybe it was too much biblical study time with her father seeping through. Few people knew the dangers of hurled stones better than thirteen year old girls who had been analyzing the story of David and Goliath since they could read.

“You’re dead Ravenwood” came a shrill girl’s voice with a thick street accent.

The shrill voice would be right if Marion did not find some way to lose her pursuers. She had done the math and there was no chance of outrunning them all the way home. She needed an edge, somewhere to hide, or a rock of her own.

Marion checked over her shoulder. Four shabby thirteen year old girls, four sets of worn leather shoes slapping pavement. They might as well have been the Akkadian hoards coming at her with spears for all the good she would do against them in a fight.

The irony of the whole thing was that she had skipped visiting another musty church archive with her father to hop the trolley downtown in the first place. If she had gone with him she would not have gotten out of the nickelodeon just in time to see the four urchins climbing out the high back window of the nearby church, arms full of stolen silver. Marion was not even particularly religious. Maybe it was growing up hearing mythology from one parent and biblical history from another, but Sunday Mass never looked much different from Greek Hero Cults to her.

Still, there were lines that one was not supposed to cross Stealing from a church was one of those lines. Churches were like museums and those objects belonged there, not pawned off for candy money. Besides, if the church was right about this world and the one beyond Marion was really doing those girls a favor by stopping them from taking those candlesticks. That had to be some kind of sin.

Right, and maybe she should just stop and try to convince them of that.

What she really needed was a nice long train to come between her and them, like in all those dime novel westerns.

No, what she really needed was a plan. Nobody got anywhere just flying by the seat of their pants. What kind of a life philosophy was that? So, while her legs cried out for rest, she thought and thought and thought some more, mostly about how tired her legs were, but between those unhelpful thoughts something useful came up.

The trolley. The one she had taken downtown in the first place, it was due to pass by again soon. It stood no chance of stopping her pursuers, but maybe it did not have to.

Marion pumped her legs all the harder. Just one more burst of speed was all she needed. The trolley came up—well, maybe not fast—but sudden. Marion kicked off the pavement and leaped into the passing carriage without it having to stop. The driver looked at her incredulously but she was already moving back down the aisle.

The quartet of stone throwers was visible through the window. They watched her with sneering faces as she ducked behind two men in fine suits, bankers or stockbrokers. Really these guys probably deserved the stones more than Marion did, but the urchins were smart enough not to throw them. Beating on some wise ass thirteen year old was one thing, but attacking public transit was a whole other headache nobody wanted.

The shortest of the four girls dropped all her rocks but one as she watched the trolley pass by. She had lost sight of Marion but she was not dumb. She was formulating a plan of her own.

“Split up. Wait at the stops. Only one of us needs to be there to jump her.”

The taller girls followed her command and broke away to wait for their target along the trolley route.

Meanwhile Marion, who had hopped out the back of the trolley after ducking behind the stockbrokers stood up from her hiding spot behind a fruit stand. She plucked an apple from the cart and handed the bewildered fruit seller a penny.

She walked off toward her home chewing on her apple and feeling pretty good about herself. She had seen a good movie with a nice stretch of cartoons. She had stopped a robbery and possibly saved those girls’ souls and now she had an apple. Plus it was only four and her father would be busy at that church for a few more hours, plenty of time to get home, clean herself up and pretend she had been sick in bed all day.

She took another big bite. “Not bad Mar—”

“Marion Ravenwood.”

“Well damn” she said. She turned around.

Abner Ravenwood was tall, with a bushy black mustache and a square head. Most people, upon meeting him, would have thought him a cowboy or a police officer instead of an academic. Of course, those people had never met Flinders Petrie or seen pictures of Belzoni. They did not know that more than a few archaeologists looked like they could take most boxers in one on one fights.

So, looking up at her father and weighing her options, Marion considered that she would much rather try her hand against the stone throwing street girls.

“Anything to say for yourself?” Abner asked.

“Would it help any if I told you about how I stopped a robbery so really, one good dead, one bad dead. It all sort of balances out.”

Funnily enough Abner did not see it that way. It would be, oh, at least three weeks before she was allowed out of the house without supervision. Maybe three years before she was allowed off the university campus.

Still, she was not one to sulk, especially as, so far as she was concerned, she had done nothing wrong. It paid to make her parents think she was sulking though. So she locked herself in her room with a volume of her mother’s mythology textbooks and read about Perseus, Atalanta, Herakles and all the rest of her favorites. She preferred mythology to those dry archaeology reports her father got from Egypt. For crying out loud it was 1918, the Valley of the King’s was totally plundered. What did any of those stuffy English lords and their amateur dig leaders expect to find?

Downstairs the door slammed. Marion heard grumbling come up from the first floor through the grate in her wall. Mother was home, and judging by the stomping she had bigger problems than Marion skipping research time to see _Tarzan of the Apes_.

“Those bastards” she said once the door was closed and there was no chance she would be overheard.

“I take it the meeting did not go well” Abner said.

“ _Nothing but woman’s fancy_ ” Mother said in an imitation of one of the stuffed shirts in the Classics department. “Meanwhile everyone bends over backwards venerating the memory of Schliemann—”

“A destructive fool” Abner said. Marion knew this was part empathy with his wife and part real disdain for the man who had dynamited his way to the lost city of Troy. “You are worth ten of him my dear.”

“I’m afraid you’re the only one who thinks so Abner.”

“There was that Scotsman out of Princeton. The medieval studies professor.”

“Yes well, he’s in less a position to help me than you. Let’s face it. It isn’t archaeology. There’s no _fact_ to be found. My conjecture is worth as much as theirs save for the fact that I am a woman and they are old mummies with beards too big for their heads.” There was a weary sigh and pause. “Where’s Marion? Is she feeling any better?”

Marion tensed.

Abner sighed. “In a way.”

“Oh for the love of—”

“It’s actually a rather compelling story” Abner said. “Though she must never know I said that. Either way it’s nothing for you to worry about. Sit down. Rest. Tomorrow we’ll go over your notes again and we’ll find some way to convince them. I promise.”

“Abner Ravenwood” Marion’s mother said. Her voice was weary. “Sometimes…. Sometimes there’s no pushing through.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Savvy readers of the Indiana Jones supplementary media may note that I have aged Marion up slightly. This is because her age relative to Indy's as stated in the Lucasfilm timeline makes the start of their relationship feel kinda icky to me and since nothing in the movies or tv show or comics contradicts me, I'm choosing to imply that Marion was 18 when they meet. According to the Young Indiana Jones TV Series, Indy, in this chapter, is 17 years old and working as a translator at the Paris Peace Conference.
> 
> "Tarzan of the Apes" starring Elmo Lincoln in the title role was the first screen adaptation of Tarzan from 1918, before the more famous Johnny Weissmuller films.
> 
> Anyone who knows their Egyptology knows that Marion is not quite correct about the Valley of the Kings.
> 
> Heinrich Schliemann was one of the fathers of modern archaeology in as much as he showed archaeologists all the things that one should never ever do to a site...this involved copious amounts of dynamite.


	2. The Lady's Cheque

**Connecticut, 1936**

Marshall College was one of the finer Ivy League Universities on the East Coast. In particular it boasted an Anthropology Department which rivaled Bembridge University in England and was matched, in the United States, only by the University of Chicago and Barnett College in New York. Its museum contained collections of artifacts that was the envy of every other establishment on the coast.

It also boasted a PR department that, in the last few months, had turned it from a stuffy collection room where schoolboys yawned in front of artifacts men had killed for, to a hot spot of the town. Marion Ravenwood, the dark haired, petit and fiery new head of PR was to blame for that. A lot of the stodgier old professors hated her for it. They believed her lavish cocktail parties and carnival days were a black mark on the mission of pure science and tomb robbing.

A few of the professors liked her well enough. Stanforth, who chaired the Anthropology department and whom she worked closely with on most of her ideas, and Brody, the Curator and Dean. And of course there was Indy.

Maybe most of the stuffed shirts’ dislike of her went part and parcel with their dislike of Indy. They didn’t like his methods, or the fact that, even in a suit and tie he had trouble not strutting around like he was in a John Ford Western and often couldn’t be bothered to keep his office hours. Even Marion had to admit that he often seemed to have trouble sitting in one place for too long, and he tugged his collar like he’d rather be in anything but tweeds. They hated that he let women into his classes and treated them like actual scholars and they especially hated that he liked to be called Indiana.

Still, she supposed she loved him, thought she had promised Brody she would slug the next professor to suggest that she had her job because she was sleeping with Brody’s golden boy (the fact of the matter was that they were sleeping together, but the it had nothing to do with her getting the job and nobody outside of Indy and herself could prove it anyway).

A class was just letting out, and three dozen or so young scholars poured into the hallways, filling the hallowed halls with thoughts that had little to do with academia. Apparently a sequel to Bela Lugosi’s Dracula had just come sans most of the principal cast and naturally all of the folklore students had an opinion on Hollywood’s latest retread of Stoker’s novel. A lot of forceful opinions were exchanged as Marion wedged her way through the throng, trying to make her way to Stanforth’s office.

“Hiya Miss Ravenwood” one of the student’s said. Marion was flat against the wall as the student’s passed. Despite this, she managed a polite nod at the one speaking to her, a messy haired young man in Green whose name was maybe Harry, she couldn’t quite remember. “We just started discussing your father’s book on the excavations at Troy. He really lets Schleimann have it.”

“Yeah, dad wasn’t a fan” Marion replied. She was not keen to get involved in a discussion of her father’s work with a student, but she was also basically trapped until the halls emptied. “Is Stanforth in his office?”

Maybe-Harry pulled his lips back in an expression of sympathetic pain. “I believe so.”

“What’s with the face kid?”

Possibly-Harry rolled his shoulders. “I heard he’s been in a meeting for the last hour and some woman is really letting him have it.”

Some woman? Charlie Stanforth was, so far as Marion knew, a happily married man. There was little chance any woman other than Dierdre would come to his office and even less she would come to shout at him. A sneaking, baseless, but oddly compelling suspicion crept into Marion’s mind that this had something to do with Indy. It was just how things tended to go when the world did not make sense.

Almost certainly-Harry talked her ear off until the herd thinned enough that Marion was able to squeeze through and take the final few strides to Stanforth’s office. She had mail to pick up and she wanted to run a few new promotions past Charlie before she started talking with caterers.

The Chair’s office was a small room just off the main Anthropology Department office. A tiny waiting room separated Charlie from the hallway. That was where his secretary Nicole sat, usually a picture of prim professionalism. Today she was hunched over at her desk, listening wide eyed as a muffled tirade poured from behind the frosted glass door of Charlie’s office. Marion stared at the door as she passed Nicole to retrieve her mail from the cubicle.

“She’s been in there for hours” Nicole stage whispered.

Marion leaned on Nicole’s desk as she flipped through her letters. “Who?”

“This singer that worked a fundraising event last year—before you took the job—I guess she hasn’t been paid yet or something. She won’t leave.”

Marion dropped the letters into her purse and flashed a smirk. “This is why you need me here” she said, pushing the door to Charlie’s office open. Nicole made the sign of the cross as she entered.

Charlie Stanforth, already greying at the temples and balding ever so slightly dabbed sweat off his forehead as a blond in a smart red suit railed at him in a vague southern accent. When he saw Marion his eyes lit up like she was an entirely different and far more moral Mary.

“Miss Scott” he said, talking over the other woman rather than wait to get a word in. “I really do have things to attend to but if you’d like to speak with our Public Relations manager Miss Ravenwood I’m sure she’d be happy to help you.”

Miss Scott placed a hand on Charlie’s desk and drummed finely manicured red nails against the wood. She flashed Marion an icy glare.

“Does Miss Ravenwood have my fifteen dollars?”

Marion flicked her eyes at Charlie, who looked like he had just run a marathon, and then back to the impatient Miss Scott.

“Charlie, is there any particular reason Miss Scott has not been paid yet?”

“Doctor Jones organized her performance. Her payment was to be Doctor Jones’ responsibility.”

 _There it was_. “Naturally” Marion said. “And I suppose Indy went off on some last minute trip before he could get you paid?”

“Off to some temple in India” she said disdainfully. “Though I don’t know why he’d ever go back” she muttered to herself. “The temple of Mona, or something.”

“Mara” Marion corrected. “He got very ill on that expedition. No wonder he forgot to pay you.”

“That’s all very nice, but I still need my fifteen dollars.”

Charlie looked at Marion pleadingly. Marion crossed her arms. How much of her life was going to be cleaning up Indy’s messes? She could guess how he had met this woman. She was not naïve enough to think she was the first, just as Indy was not deluded enough to think the same of himself.

Marion sighed. “Miss Scott if you leave an address I’ll have a check couriered to you by the end of the day.”

Miss Scott grinned like—well like Helen Chandler in _Dracula_ now Marion thought of it. Like a woman possessed of a dark inner strength that nobody else could detect.

“Oh I don’t think so. If you’re cutting a check I’ll be there to collect it in person.”

“Miss Scott I’m sure you have other things to do and—” Nope. It was a losing battle, Marion could see that plain as day in the other woman’s stance. Lovely. She had been hoping to get to the library, maybe have a nice lunch and go look at some of the properties she had been recommended around the town. It was supposed to be a day to herself, not a day spent schlepping some southern songstress to the bank. Marion’s shoulders slumped. “You’re paying your own trolley fare.”

She did, which was about the only nice thing about travelling with Miss Scott. Marion sat on the window side of the trolley that would take them downtown where she could access the money she had set aside for University events and cut Miss Scott her check. She tried to read, but found herself distracted by the other woman’s constant primping as she gazed into a little handheld mirror.

Realizing she was not going to get anything pleasurable done until she was rid of her, Marion took her mail from her bag and shifted through the envelopes. Junk, the lot of it. A lot of letters from old colleagues of her father’s back in Chicago happy to find she was back in the states. As if she wanted anything to do with them. One letter from a rather irate Doctor O’Connell at the British Museum, trying to reach Indy through Marion to negotiate the return of the archival materials he borrowed and never returned. Based on the descriptions they were currently sitting beneath a pile of ungraded tests on his desk. The last, and the only one to catch her attention was from Harold Oxley at Bembridge.

She tore the top off the envelope and scanned the letter. Oxley’s handwriting was habitually neat, but this letter bore the marks of duress. It was overly wordy, which was Ox’s default setting, but a few phrases caught Marion’s attention and made her blood run cold. _German researchers… Abner Ravenwood… Egyptian Relics_.

Marion’s knuckles were white as she read the letter again and again, trying to glean some deeper meaning from Ox’s loquaciousness, but those were the salient points. Germans. Her father. Egypt. It painted a picture in her mind that she had done her best to push away. Now it was flaring up with the force of a tank battalion. Guns. Fire. Screams.

“Excuse me” Miss Scott’s high voice snapped her out of her reverie. “I think we’re here.”

Marion, face glistening with sweat, stuffed the letter back into her bag and looked up. They were indeed at the bank. She stood and half stumbled off the trolley while Scott strutted behind her. She paused on the pavement, leaning on a lamppost. She breathed deep breaths as bank patrons filed around her. Scott crossed her arms and watched her, one eyebrow raised.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Just need a minute.” The letter was postdated last week. She needed to get to a telegraph office and get in touch with Bembridge. Find out what was going on first hand. Get passage to England if she had to and hear it straight from Ox. Maybe get in touch with those two G-Men that had taken the Ark.

“I think your friends want to talk to you” Scott said.

Marion was staring at the ground but she looked up to reply. Scott was fixing her hair in her mirror again.

“What?”

She pointed offhandedly to two burly men in suits who were standing just far enough away that bystanders would think nothing of it, but close enough to let Marion know who they were there for. She stood up straight. Maybe they were G-Men. Maybe they were already aware of what Oxley had been trying to warn her of and were here to help.

One of them pushed back the hem of his jacket to reveal a holstered Luger pistol.

 _Yeah_. Marion thought. _That seems right._

They approached and Scott, reliably unobservant smiled at them. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

Marion set her jaw. Surely they would not try anything too bold out in public. In front of a bank of all places.

“Sure. Let me guess—” She said, jutting her chin at them in turn. “Hans and…. Fra—”

“Miss Ravenwood you will come with us.”

No sense of humor these guys.

Marion smirked. “We’re in broad daylight in the middle of a crowd in front of a bank with armed guards. What are you going to do?”

“We will kill Herr Doktor O’Connell if you do not cooperate.”

Even Miss Scott was able to see that this was not a friendly meeting. She had put away her mirror and was watching Marion, maybe trying to find cues for how to react, maybe just cursing her for getting them into his mess. Either way she was remaining remarkably calm, all things considered.

“O’Connell?”

Hans ground his teeth. “The little Englander with the reedy voice.”

That did not sound like the Dr. O’Connell Indy had introduced her to on their last visit to London, who he had borrowed archival material from. That Dr. O’Connell had been a curly haired Anglo-Egyptian woman. Hans’ description actually sounded a bit like—

A black car pulled up to the curb and the back door opened to reveal a third gunman with a Luger pointed straight at Ox’s head. His eyes were moist and he had a black gloved hand fixed over his mouth.

Marion glared at Hans. “Okay, let’s all be calm.”

“We _are_ calm Miss Ravenwood. You will get in the car.” He looked at Scott. “You as well.”

Scott grinned, but it was barely held together on her face. “I’m not—”

“Into the car” Hans said, overenunciating every syllable.

Marion swallowed. “Do as he says.”

Scott’s voice shook. “I really don’t—”

Marion grabbed her hand. She was shaking like a leaf. “Hey, trust me. Just follow me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones" is indisputably the best Indiana Jones comic book series because Marion is a recurring character and it makes you actually care about her as more than just another "girl of the week." It is also the series that establishes that while Marion and Indy were together post-Raiders she worked as the PR Manager for the museum.
> 
> "Dracula's Daughter" only contains one member of its predecessor's cast, but isn't a bad film at all.
> 
> Marion is correct, the student's name is Harry, and after leaving the university his hobbies may or may not include swinging on vines, jumping on crocodiles, and various pit related incidents.
> 
> I have an idea for a Mummy/Indiana Jones Crossover that I may write one day. Sorry for the fake-out.
> 
> I think one of the interesting things about Crystal Skull is that it implies Oxley was part of Marion;s social circle independent of Indy, and in fact takes her side in the split, which is why I chose him as a sidekick for this adventure. I chose Willie because the thought of her and Marion teaming up seemed fun to write.


	3. Bullets over the Wharf

Blindfolds. For some reason these bastards were always big on blindfolds. They drove for what felt like a little over an hour. Miss Scott whimpered the whole way. Ox made some noises too, but they sounded more politely indignant than anything. Probably Ox was too British to try to curse anyone out.

When they stopped and were hustled out of the car Marion caught the scent of brine and rotting fish. Somewhere a gull crowed. The docks. They had to be somewhere near the docks. Rough hands shoved Marion forward and her heels sloshed into a puddle. Scott continued to whimper behind her, which at least told Marion she was still alive.

Someone shoved her into a chair and tore the blindfold off. A couple of second passed where Marion just blinked the spots out of her eyes. Shafts of sun cut through high windows, the only windows in the otherwise dark and empty warehouse. Scott was sat on her left, Ox on her right. Hans and his men stood around them with machine guns, which seemed a bit much.

Another man, tall, lithe, with swept back hair and a too thin mouth emerged from the shadows like he had been waiting there. He wore a dark suit and black leather long coat, which seemed to be the standard uniform for guys like him. He clapped black gloved hands together and his too thin mouth dipped into a V shape that was evidently supposed to be a smile.

“Marion Ravenwood. Only child of the great Abner Ravenwood.”

“And it’s brought me a world of fun let me tell you” Marion said.

Scott shot her a look that seemed to say _what the hell are you doing antagonizing them?_ Or possibly _crap, crap, crap._

“ _Herr Doktor_ O’Connell” he nodded at Ox, “tells us you have notebooks of your fathers which will help us in a little archaeological matter.”

She flicked her eyes at Ox who was looking down sheepishly. Whatever they were talking about was news to her, but she was not about to admit that in an empty warehouse surrounded by machine guns. She was from Chicago after all. She knew how this game was played.

“You wanted dad’s books maybe you shouldn’t have pulled me and my friend off the street. People are gonna be looking for us, and when I don’t show up home somebody is going to notice.”

Black Coat shot Hans a withering look and said something in German. Hans raised his palm in salute and stalked off with one of his men. Black Coat stepped forward and leaned down to look Marion in the eyes.

“Mister Kahler will retrieve your father’s things from your home. In the meantime you will aid O’Connell in his work. We want a speedy end to this Miss Ravenwood. Cooperate and you will be allowed to leave.

_No we won’t_. Marion thought, and the wheels started turning in her mind.

Two more suited gunmen appeared and hauled them out of their chairs. They were marched into a small office in the corner of the warehouse and shut inside. A lock clicked, or a gun, either way it limited their chances of escape.

While Miss Scott sank into a corner and hugged her knees Marion rounded on Ox.

“Ox. Do I even need to ask you to explain?”

Ox ran his hand down his face and let out a long breath. “I didn’t want you dragged into this Marion. I had been trying to buy time for you to receive my letter and find the proper authorities, or failing that, get Henry’s attention.”

Marion put her hands on her hips. “Indy’s in the Aleutians.”

“Oh dear. Oh Marion I’m so sorry.” He buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe I pulled you into this.”

Marion looked down and shook her head. “It’s fine” she said, though she was not sure that was true. “Why are they calling you O’Connell?”

“They need something translated from hieratic, an obscure form of it evidently. They were looking for Doctor O’Connell, evidently not aware she is a woman I was in her office when they showed up and in the moment pretending to be her seemed the best way to preserve my life and hers.” He wasn’t wrong. Once they were willing to kidnap a museum curator out of a foreign nation they were probably just as willing to kill an archaeologist who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I’ve been pretending to work on the translations, but I think they’re starting to catch on to the fact that I don’t read hieratic.”

More wheels began to turn. “I do” Marion said. She went to the little desk that had been set up in the corner. “More or less. You didn’t think I sat in the back of all dad’s classes without learning anything did you?” She looked at a metal strongbox on the desk, about the size of a large dictionary. “This it?”

Ox nodded. “It’s a clay tablet. 18th Dynasty….maybe. My expertise is in South America.”

Marion looked back at the door and without really wanting to she pictured all the armed Nazis waiting for them. She opened the box.

Miss Scott pulled herself to her feet and went to stand behind Marion as she flicked on a lamp and beheld the tablet inside. It filled about half the box, and rested on a velvet pillow. A perfect rectangular clay tablet covered in curved symbols.

“What is that? Chinese?”

Marion replied without looking away from the tablet. “Hieratic. It’s the commoner language of the ancient Egyptians.” She hovered her fingers over the symbols. “Ox, where did they find this?”

“A site in Faiyum I think.” Ox tried to look her in the eyes but she was transfixed. “Can you read it?”

Marion squinted. “Parts of it.” She cleared her throat. “ _In the sacred hill where the setting sun is cupped by the earth. In the house of Sobek the helm of the Greek will show the way to Gorgon’s tomb._ ” Marion stepped back. There was no way. It was a fairy tale. Even to the Greeks it was nothing more than a…. The ghost of a smile passed over her lips.

“What the hell does that mean?” Miss Scott asked.

Ox did a double take, seeming to notice her for the first time. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

“Willie Scott” she said, holding her chin up. “The singer.”

Ox regarded her briefly. “I’m sorry I’ve never heard of you.”

Miss Scott—Willie started to retort but Marion held up a silencing finger. “Shut up. Shut up the both of you.”

“Marion are you okay?”

Marion took Ox by the shoulders and grinned. “The Gorgon’s tomb Ox. You don’t remember my dad’s lecture on the intersection of archeology and mythology?”

Ox blinked in thought. “I remember some harsh words for Heinrich Schleimann.”

“So you don’t know what she’s talking about either?” Willie asked.

Marion let Ox go and went to the door. She pressed her ear against the wood. There was neither the time, nor the need to explain. What they needed, plain and simple, was to get out. She could worry about the Gorgon’s Tomb and the notebooks back in Evanston later. She went back to the desk and lifted the tablet. It had a good heft to it, enough that she would only get one shot at this.

“Miss—Willie get them to come in here?”

“What?” The other woman asked, her drawl coming out much thicker than any time before.

“Trust me” Marion said.

***

Kruger flattened the burnt stub of his cigarette with the heel of his shoe. He hated that he had been left on guard duty while Kahler and the others got to go and do important work. Still, perhaps it was for the best. _Doktor_ Sturm was mad at them, and so long as Kruger was here and Kahler was being sent out to clean up his own messes it meant that Kruger was still in the _Doktor’s_ good graces.

“Please. Please I need water. I need air, you need to let me out. I need to get out of here. You can’t do this to me I’m an American and I have rights and….”

It went on and on. Kruger looked out the grimy window. Sturm was still out on the dock. If he came inside he would be upset that such a disturbance was being allowed. Kruger would need to silence the woman quickly. Another of Kahler’s mistakes to clean up. It had been him after all, who had insisted on kidnapping the other woman. Probably he thought she was attractive.

Kruger opened the door and found the blond woman sitting on the floor, being tended to by O’Connell. Something was not right. Where was the other woman? Ravenwood’s daughter. Where was the—

Marion swung the tablet down so hard it cracked in two on the back of the Nazi’s head. So either he had a very strong head or this ancient piece of stone that had been subjected to probably thousands of years of desert erosion was kind of fragile. The Nazi hit the ground and did not move to get back up. Marion prodded his ribs with the tip of her shoe but there was no reaction. Ox and Willie stared at her wide eyed.

She set the cracked half a tablet she still held down gently and frisked the corps, coming up with a shiny Luger pistol.

“This aught to even up the odds.”

“How do you figure?” Willie asked, still staring at the dead man. “They had Tommy Guns. Have you ever seen what a Tommy Gun does to a person.”

“Well I’m from Chicago so….” Marion trailed off as she spotted something in the other half of the tablet. Something shiny was sticking out of the spot where it had cracked, like it had been baked into the clay. She bent down and started trying to pry it loose.

“Excuse me” Willie said. “Can we go?”

Marion freed the piece. It was a bronze disk, about the size of her palm. She had seen pieces like it before, but they had mostly been Egyptian and this was obviously Greek, and far older than the 18th Dynasty tablet. She slipped it into her pocket.

“If we’re by the docks then we’re not too far from the train station. I need to get to Chicago. Once we’re there we can get help and I can get to my mom’s notebooks.”

“Your mother? I thought—”

Marion slapped a hand over Ox’s mouth. A door had opened somewhere in the warehouse. She made eye contact with him and held her finger up to her lips. He nodded, eyes wide. The two of them crouched while Willie, probably too much in shock to really follow nonverbal cues stood and stared at them like they had just lost their minds. Marion shoved her down and ushered her and Ox behind a stack of crates. Halfway into cover herself she stopped and scurried back to the door, shutting it behind her so that there would be no sign of their—

“Miss Ravenwood?”

Marion closed her eyes. Shit. She stood up and faced Black Coat who had Hans and his gun toting brethren behind him. One of them had a satchel slung over his shoulder, bulging with what Marion assumed to be some of her father’s notebooks that had been in her apartment. Apparently every so often a wild goose chase yields actual geese.

“Hey there” she said with faux cheer. “Just wanted to stretch my legs.”

“I tried to be civil _Fraulein_. I really did.”

“Yeah, civility usually means at least introducing yourself.”

Black Coat stripped the leather gloves from his hands and handed them to Hans, all in jerky motions, like he was being drilled by a commanding officer.

“My name is Albrecht Sturm. I am a Professor of Archaeology, much like your father and your _Doktor_ Jones. Our paths have come close to crossing before in fact. I did much of the preliminary work on the Tanis expedition with Colonel Dietrich before that weaselly little Frenchman took over. No matter now though. I have a new project for the glory of the Fatherland. I had hoped you and _Doktor_ O’Connell might aid me in the spirit of academic discovery, but I see that you are not open to such civil discourse.”

A steady trail of blood was seeping out from under the door. Marion wondered how long it would be before somebody noticed it and realized what she had done. She needed an ace in her sleeve, or at the very least she needed to buy enough time for Ox and Willie to escape.

“Interesting tablet you have” She said, talking ever so slightly louder, anything to draw attention away from the door. “18th Dynasty hieratic. O’Connell told me you found it in Faiyum. Probably one of the Crocodopilis temples to Sobek.”

A bit of the anger left Sturm’s face and the V-grin returned. “You read it?” He sounded breathless. Marion had spent her life around archeologists. She knew the tone.

She nodded slowly, the way snake charmers do. It was a common misconception that snake charmers used music to keep their pets docile. Snakes are deaf. The charming comes from the hypnotic movement of the charmer’s head. The snake follows it, mesmerized at least for a little bit. Marion had seen it done a few times, and always fancied trying it.

“What are you looking for out there? Not a Holy object. Something older. Your kind are after two kinds of artifacts, symbols and weapons. So which is it?”

“The armies of the fatherland will march across the world with the powers of the old gods at our fingertips.”

“Weapon then” Marion said. “Look Mac, I’ve seen what the power of gods does to bastards like you. You wouldn’t like it.”

Sturm stepped forward, officially putting himself too close for Marion’s comfort. “Your _Doktor_ Jones is not here to save you _Fraulein_. You would do well to tell me exactly what you read on that tablet before I become irritated.”

One of the Nazis with a Tommy Gun walked over to the door, eyes fixed on the ever expanding pool of blood. He twisted the knob and looked down in horror at his comrade’s corpse.

“ _Herr_ Sturm” he shouted, voice cracking.

Every pair of Nazi eyes turned to the gruesome sight. It was a small window, but any would do. Marion pulled the Luger from the waistband of her skirt and began firing and backpedaling at once. She took the overly curious gunman in the chest and his body hit the ground beside his comrade. Her other shots were not as lucky, grazes to arms and legs, nothing immediately lethal, but enough to prevent any kind of competent return fire. Of course, that still left incompetent return fire, which was just as dangerous.

Marion dove behind the stack of crates as the Tommy guns began to tear them to shreds. Ox and Willie made themselves as small as possible as bullets punched holes in the wood around them. The pair of them looked at Marion as she joined them.

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

“Ideally for the bullets to stop” Willie snarled.

“They’ll stop when we’re dead or gone, your choice.” She moved her attention to Oxley. “Ox, you coming?”

Oxley’s face scrunched in on itself as he clamped his eyes shut. “Bloody hell” he muttered, then got to his feet.

Outvoted two to one, Willie kicked off her heels and sprang into the same standing crouch Marion and Oxley were using to stay behind the rapidly deteriorating crates. Together the three of them took off. The cover of the crates ended about three yards from the door. Marion went first, firing wildly in the general direction of the spray of the Tommy Guns. A gurgled yelp told her that she had managed another good hit, though she was in no position to count how many enemies were left.

As she fired, Oxley and Willie sprinted for the door. Oxley never stopped to open it, instead just slamming his shoulder into it and hoping for the best. It swung open and the sunlight and the smell of salt and brine greeted them. Oxley barreled through first, then Willie. Marion continued firing until the bolt slid back, telling her that she was out of ammunition.

A moment passed where the remaining Nazis, three gunmen, including Hans, and Sturm, stared at her without firing, stunned by her brazenness, and she stared back, a little stunned at herself as well. Then the barrels of the guns swung upward again and Marion flung herself out the door, slamming it shut behind her.

Outside a small crowd of sailors and stevedores had been drawn by the sound of the gunfire. Somewhere away from the docks, the sounds of police whistles and sirens cut through the din of city life.

Oxley pushed the largest thing he could find, a push cart laden with barrels, in front of the door. He kicked at the wooden wheels until they came free, turning it from a mobile cart into a stationary platform.

“Do you think that will hold them?”

Marion grabbed his and Willie’s arms and started running again. “Let’s not stick around to find out.”

The assembled men stared at them as they ran along the pier. Marion turned to a few of them as they passed and shouted frantic, high pitched pleas for help and warnings of Nazi spies and men with guns. A few of the sailors took this to heart and stalked toward the warehouse with rolled up sleeve and balled up firsts. Some even had guns.

The staccato of Tommy Guns hit their ears. Marion allowed herself a half turn to see Sturm’s men firing as they ran. Few of the previously brave dockworkers got in their way after that. Marion pumped her legs faster. Ox and Willie let go of her hands to focus on their own running, but stayed just on her heels.

What she needed now was something resembling a plan. She looked around the wharf. Even if they got on one of the smaller boats their chances of escaping with any speed were nil. Maybe they could hide on one of the big cargo ships, but that would only delay the inevitable. Up ahead a large cargo crane loomed, signaling the end of the wharf.

“We’re running out of places to run” Willie screeched.

“I’m aware” Marion shot back, wheels turning.

She careened to the left, making for the crane. It rose above the tops of all of the ships, a lattice of rusted metal girders, ropes, and pulleys that was kept functional by good old maritime stubbornness. She reached the base and threw herself at the ladder. Willie eyed her in disbelief as she began to climb.

“You can’t be serious. What the hell are you doing?”

“You’ll see” Marion replied, too focused on the task at hand to see if Willie was buying it.

Once she was halfway up she could see the Nazi thugs fighting through the crowded wharf. One of them spotted her up on the crane, pointing and shouting something in German. Funny how many dead languages she and Indy had between them and neither of them spoke any German. She assumed it was something to the effect of _there’s the idiot._

Bullets started to _ping_ off the scaffolding. There were wild yelps from the burly works, most of whom ducked for cover as the Nazis started firing on them, though one closest to the edge of the wharf did a swan dive worthy of Marshall Wayne right into the Atlantic. He bobbed up a moment later and began swimming as far from the pitched gun battle as possible. It was a good plan, and Marion was a little angry with herself that it was not the one she had settled on. She made her way to the top of the crane, where the arm jutted out over the water. The fella in the control tower was ducked behind the levers.

“Hey pal, mind if I borrow this?”

The man stared wide eyed as Marion gripped the levers. She gave one an experimental tug. The cargo platform on the end of the arm lowered, along with the several large crates stacked on top of it. She moved the other level. The arm swung to the side, right over the wharf. Anyone not already scared away by the gunfight scattered.

That was, in one sense, good, since it meant less chance of innocent people getting hurt. In another sense it meant that the Nazi thugs were having an easier time getting to the crane. Marion peeked out over the side. Ox and Willie were pressed up against the base, watching the thugs come at them. This was going to take timing, precision, luck—mostly luck.

Marion adjusted the levers. “Hey, what’s in those crates?”

The terrified crane operator just shrugged. _Whatever_. Marion supposed it did not really matter.

***

Willie clung to Oxley as Sturm and his thugs ran for them. On the plus side they had given up on firing, but that was only because they were so close that they would be able to wrestle them into submission easily. Ox looked up at the crane, wondering if he should climb after Marion. A gentleman should—oh what was he thinking—gentlemen did not get themselves into these predicaments. Who did he think he was, Sherlock Holmes?

“Does she have a plan?” Wille asked, digging her nails into his arm.

Ox gave a pained smile. “Usually—that is to say—I have no idea.”

Sturm kept at a leisurely strut while his men ran at Ox and Willie, fury in their faces. A great shadow passed over them and there was a great groaning of metal, like a poorly designed suspension bridge in high winds. Suddenly Marion’s plan crystallized in Ox’s mind. He averted his eyes as what had to be several tons of crates came crashing down, flattening the thugs into a fine paste beneath a mountain of shattered wood and someone’s bespoke furniture.

Only Sturm was sparred, though the shock had caused him to dive backwards, leaving him prone on the ground. As the wailing of police sirens grew closer, the Nazi archeologist darted his head this way and that, then broke into a run in the other direction.

***

Marion descended the ladder just as the police were beginning to cordon off the area. Most of their attention was focused on the crushed Nazis, leaving Marion and the others a window to escape without being seen. The last thing either of their Universities needed was this kind of press. They got enough of that from Indy and O'Connell.

Within ten minutes they were getting close to the train station. Willie and Marion had both discarded their heels in the chase, and so were barefoot, and Ox, who had spent several days as Sturm’s captive, was unwashed. They got odd looks from passersby, but nobody said anything.

“You got any cash on you Ox?”

“They didn’t exactly let me fetch my billfold as they were dragging me away.”

They had taken her purse when they grabbed them off the street. She looked to Willie, who was giving them the most judgmental looks of anyone on the street.

“You got money on you?”

Willie looked affronted. “You still owe me fifteen—”

“We need train tickets,” Marion interrupted.

“What’s this _we_?” Willie asked. “You’re as bad as Jones. I’m not getting suckered into this twice.”

Marion cracked a bitter grin. “Oh by all means you can stay behind and wait for the cops or the Nazis to grab you. Otherwise I think you’re stuck with us.”

Willie stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to consider this point. Several pedestrians had to part around her like the Red Sea. She spent several seconds staring off into space before digging into the lining of her jacket and producing a handful of coins. She shoved them into Marion’s hand.

“I can’t believe this is happening again” she grumbled. “I just wanted my fifteen dollars.”

“I’ll pay you back” Marion said without looking at her. She was counting out the money.

“And what I just gave you?”

“With interest” Marion snapped. She started counting from the beginning. “Yeah there’s enough here for three tickets.”

Willie sighed and shook her head. “To where?”

“Chicago.”

“Marion what the devil is going on?”

Marion started walking again, a renewed sense of purpose in her steps. She jingled the money in her hand. “The Gorgon’s tomb Ox.”

Willie, exasperated, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted at Marion’s back, “That’s not an answer!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It always seemed to me that, angry with her father as she might have been, Marion still would have picked up enough archaeology to be functional. I think the fact that he took her with him on all those expeditions that landed them in Nepal indicates that she was actively involved with his work on some level, even if she resented him.
> 
> I also wanted to allude to something that always seemed faintly ridiculous to me, which is that archaeologists in fiction, especially Indy, just know everything about every region. I know plenty of archaeologists who are very accomplished but don't read a bit of hieroglyph or hieratic because Egypt is not their focus. Oxley, who knows ancient Mayan, probably wouldn't be able to read hieratic and Marion, who we know doesn't read ancient Mayan, might, given Abner's focus seemed to be in Egypt.


	4. Death in Academia

**Chicago, Illinois**

En route to Chicago Marion arranged for money to be wired to the station and they used it to purchase more respectable clothes and hire a taxi to take them to the University. Marion had not seen the University of Chicago in many years, not since Abner had decided to take her on a permanent world tour after her mother died. One would have thought that such a trip would be ample opportunity for father and daughter to bond, but Abner threw himself into his work and Marion was left to staring at hotel walls at best and tent flaps at worst, alone but for the memory of the place she had once called home.

Since she had made enough money to get out of Nepal she had refused to come back to the city of her birth. Somewhere along the way those memories had turned bitter. As the car dropped them on the edge of campus they came flooding back. Her head pounded with the force of tears that she would not allow escape.

“Good to be back” Ox side, smiling obliviously. He struck his hands in his pockets and started whistling as the three of them crossed the University quad, making their way to the Anthropology building.

“This is actually kind of nice” Willie said, looking around at the orange leaves and sturdy halls of learning. “It’s not New York but there’s a certain bookish charm.” She looked at Marion. “Your dad teaches here?”

“He taught here for a while,” Marion said. “Then he went crazy moved us to Nepal and died in an avalanche.”

Willie blinked. “You know you’re not good at answering questions.”

Marion snorted. “Did you call Crane Ox?”

“More animals” Willie muttered to herself. “I’m stuck in a goddamn zoo of death.”

“Professor Crane said he would have your mother’s notes pulled out of storage. Now will you please tell us what the hell is going on. You’re as bad as Henry.”

Marion rolled her eyes and stopped them in the middle of a leafy quad. All around them students laughed and bustled. She had spent her whole childhood waiting to be one of them. She had always sat in on her dad’s classes, but she wanted the experience of being a student, things other than books and lectures. She had gotten about half a semester of that with Indy and Ox before she and Indy started dating. That was when Abner lost it and suddenly there went her last chance at a normal life. They had packed up and left the states for good soon after. Now she was back. Willie and Ox huddled around her, waiting for their explanation.

“Okay, you know the story of Medusa right?”

“Of course” Oxley said.

“No” Willie answered irritably

“Okay, short version, Medusa was a priestess to the Greek goddess Athena. The god Poseidon raped her in Athena’s temple and as punishment Athena transformed her into a hideous beast that no man could look on without being turned to stone.”

Willie looked aghast. “Are these the kinds of bedtime stories your mom told you?”

“Yeah.” Marion shrugged. “Medusa ended up killed by the hero Perseus as part of a—” She waved her hand in the air. “That part’s not really important. The point is. Perseus took her head and then the legends just kind of stop except for one little scrap mentioned in a poem transcribed by Egyptians and found in a tomb near Faiyum. A scrap that talks about Perseus returning Medusa’s head to her body and laying her to rest in a tomb.” Marion found herself grinning again. Some of the old fascination with ancient legends that Abner’s madness had worked out of her came creeping back in.

“So why do we care?” Willie asked.

“Well it would be a find of immense archeological value.”

Willie shook her head. “Look, I hate Nazis as much as the next red blooded American—as long as the next red blooded American isn’t Chuck Lindbergh—but I’m not willing to risk my life so that you get professional bragging rights.”

“Willie” Marion said severely. “This isn’t about glory. A tomb like that…hidden for centuries. Never looted. Never even looked at. Whoever found it would be richer than Rockefeller. Not only that but they’d have hard proof of the story of Perseus. They’d be able to carry that on their banners, funded by Greek gold, as they marched across Europe.”

Some of the color had gone from Willie’s face. Marion wondered if she had gone too far. She started walking again and Willie and Ox fell into step behind her.

“But—” Willie stammered. “Hold on. You said the Nazis were after weapons. So is there some kind of weapon in this tomb?”

Oxley gave a playful scoff and shook his head, grinning. “Not unless anybody in Berlin is crazy enough to think the legends of Medusa’s severed head turning men to stone are anything but ancient Hellenic propaganda.”

Ice hit Marion’s veins. She had scoffed at Abner’s ghost stories all her life—right up until the Island…and what the men from Washington had locked away in whatever vault they kept. As they rounded a corner and went up the steps of the Anthropology building, she saw an expression on Willie’s face that made her wonder if the blonde had seen something too.

Professor Crane had his office on the second floor, tucked into a corner. He had been a junior professor when Marion was young. Since then he had attained tenure, but not much respect apparently, if they still kept him in the tiny office. Marion had always liked Crane. Even as a young man he had been slightly dotty. University lore was that he had spent the whole of the Great War stuck in a pit trap in the Amazon, waiting patiently while the local tribe decided if he was a threat or not and generally treating the whole thing like a slightly uncomfortable holiday.

Marion rapped on the door and waited for Crane to answer The office was tiny but she was willing to bet he was trapped behind a few crates he had accidently put in front of the doors when he got settled at his desk in the morning and not bothered to move. Indy and Marion had once found him trapped behind an overturned shelf. It had taken the two of them and Magnus Volher to lift it off.

“Doctor Crane” Marion called. “David? It’s Marion Ravenwood. Abner’s daughter. I’m here with Ox and—”

“Marion”

“Just a minute Willie.”

Manicured nails dug into Marion’s chin as Willie grabbed her head and forced her to look downwards. A pool of red seeped from under the door. Marion swallowed. She backed away from the door. Ox tried to hand her a handkerchief. He thought she was going to be sick. Instead she ran at the door, slamming against it with her shoulder. The old wooden frame splintered—and Marion’s shoulder, thankfully, did not. It still hurt like hell and she massaged it as they entered Crane’s office. Marion put a hand to her mouth. Her tears from before broke lose. It was a not a full cry, but there was no holding them back anymore.

Crane was slumped in his chair. A red stain had taken up his entire shirtfront, spreading from a wound in his gut. Ragged breaths rattled his throat and made his shoulders shake. Willie took Ox’s handkerchief and pressed it to her mouth. Her face turned a shade of green.

Marion stepped over the pooled blood and went to Crane’s side. She had seen enough gunshot wounds in her life—which was a whole other issue to be dealt with one day—to know they were too late to save him. His eyes moved like loose marbles in their sockets, but when they fell on Marion something like recognition passed across his face.

“The books” Crane croaked.

“Don’t talk David. It’s okay. Just rest.” Marion pulled off her jacket and tucked it under his head. It might have been a useless gesture, but she thought he looked more comfortable. She took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“They wanted your books. Told them—told them—” Crane’s whole body shook. “Said if Henry wanted the books back—” Crane’s eyes rolled back and his hand went limp. Marion laid it across his chest, so that it would not hang limply at his side. She shut his eyes and stepped away.

“Ox, go get campus security.”

Oxley ran off to do just that. Willie hung back in the doorway while Marion rifled through his desk. She kept her back to Willie so the other woman would not see her tears. Poor David had not deserved this. Shot in the gut and left to rot in his office. How long would it have been before anybody found him if they had not shown up.

Nothing looked out of place on the desk. The drawers were all closed. The window was still bolted shut. A locked room mystery. Not as fun when they’re not confined to books. The question rattling around Marion’s head was _why?_ Even if Sturm knew David was gathering the books for her, there was no way he could get to Chicago faster than they had. They had a head start and the benefit of not being enemy spies on foreign soil.

Then there was the matter of what David had said just before—well, what he had said. She knew Sturm wanted the books, but he had mentioned Indy, and Sturm knew Indy was not involved in this. Could there be somebody else involved? Who else could know? He had also been talking like somebody had left a message with him. It made no sense. Why shoot somebody and then leave a message with them without the guarantee somebody would hear it.

“There has to be something here” Marion muttered.

“There’s a dead guy here” Willie said, emphatically _not_ muttering.

“He has a name” Marion snapped.

“Yeah, so do I. So do you. And if we stick around here we might end up just like your friend, nothing left but a name.”

Marion opened the drawers and lifted stacks of old notes and ungraded exams.

“There _has_ to be something left. If they were trying to send a message—”

“To someone named Henry? Well I’m not Henry and neither are you. I say we tell the cops and they can track down this Henry person and—”

“For Pete’s—Indy. Indiana’s name is Henry. Did he not tell you that or did you just not pay attention?”

Willie rolled her eyes and backed further out of the office. Maybe Marion should have felt bad. She really bore the woman no ill will for her past with Indy, but she couldn’t help wishing she had somebody a little more invested with her on this lunatic crusade. Hell, this whole thing would be a lot easier if Sturm had kidnapped the real Dr. O’Connell. Marion paused midway through searching a drawer. Willie had been right. Somebody was trying to send a message to Indy. Somebody thought Indy was looking into the notes David had collected just like Sturm had assumed Indy would be coming for Ox.

If it was not Sturm, then maybe it was somebody with a grudge against Indy. She knew there was no shortage. Still, the way David had phrased it made it seem like they wanted to ransom the notebooks, and that meant they were after Indy not Medusa’s Tomb. It also probably meant that it was someone confident that Indy would know they were after him and would make the connection when David was killed. That narrowed the field considerably.

Marion leaned out of the office. Willie sat daintily on a bench in the hallway, primping her hair with the aid of a little compact mirror. Marion dug a nickel out of her jacket pocket and flicked it at Willie. Willie nearly dropped the compact and ended up doing a sort of fumbled juggling act that ended with the quarter and mirror both clutched to her chest and her lip twisted in something between a sneer and the expression of a startled cat. It may have made Marion grin just a little.

Willie stuffed the mirror back into her bag and held up the coin. “You owe me a little more than this.”

“I need you to make a phone call.”

“I’m not your secretary.”

“Just do it. Ask the operator to connect you to the Hotel Silver and see if anybody is waiting for a call from Doctor Jones?”

“Why?”

Marion pursed her lips. “Can you just do it…Please.”

Sirens began approaching. Willie looked out the window, towards the noise, then back to Marion. She stamped her foot and went off to find a payphone.

Marion went back into Crane’s office. There was a photo on his desk, of himself, Indy, Ox, and Marion. She took it out of its frame, folded it up, and put it in the pocket of her blazer. Nobody would miss it but her. She wanted something to remember him by, one of the last folks from the old days she still had fond memories of.

***

They were gone before the cops arrived. Marion had learned a while ago that this kind of chase required a certain momentum, a momentum that the police tended to kill, especially when murder was involved. They hopped a streetcar to the Hotel Silver and Marion found herself wishing she had kept any of the Nazi’s guns.

Hotel Silver looked like any fine hotel you might find in a major city, the type that catered to visiting dignitaries and captains of industry. In a way it did just that. The patrons were almost always wealthy and respected and the required many of the same services as an ambassador or a Rockefeller. The difference was that the Hotel Silver catered exclusively to crooks—that is, people who claimed _crook_ as their primary means of employment. Even after Capone had been convicted and sent to Alcatraz the city still did a brisk business in crime and knew how to treat its criminal element.

A concierge intercepted them the minute they passed through the front doors, blocking their path into the brass and silver plated lobby. Old men in pinstripe suits, who were seated in easy chairs reading newspapers, looked up. Marion guessed that people coming into the hotel were usually vetted well in advance and if the concierge stopped anybody, it was bound to be a big deal. She tagged a bulge in his jacket that indicated what he would do to them if their reason for being there was found wanting.

Marion put on her best smile and said “reservation for Jones.”

The concierge looked her up and down. “We know what Jones looks like. You’re not Jones.”

“No, but I did make the reservation and the people who wanted to meet Jones have something I want. So listen here Mac, we’re—”

“Are you Willie Scott?”

Marion blinked in surprise. The Concierge had moved past her and was smiling at Willie like a schoolboy. Willie dropped into stage mode in an instant, smiling and twirling the curls in her golden hair. The concierge was enamored and Marion, briefly, considered just clocking him in the back of the head while he was distracted. 

“It’s nice to know my talents still precede me” Willie said, her tone a far cry from the exasperated complaining that had followed Marion from Boston.

The Concierge grinned. “Is she with you Miss Scott?”

Willie looed Marion up and down. Marion narrowed her eyes, trying to convey to Willie in some way that she had damn well better play along or they were all dead.

“She is,” Willie answered sweetly. “I’m helping her recover some property that was taken…by mistake I’m sure. I’d be ever so grateful if you could help us out.”

Something about the way the Concierge was looking at them rubbed Marion the wrong way, but she did not feel like looking this particular gift horse in the mouth. He snapped his fingers and a man dressed like a bellhop but built like a leg-breaker bounced up to them. Marion sized him up and thought she might be able to take him in a fight…if she had a gun and he had his back turned.

“Take these three up to Room 1078 will you?”

The Bellhop nodded and led them to the elevators. A couple of the old mobsters hanging around the lobby watched them as they went, mildly curious as to where the mismatched trio might be headed. As they entered the elevator she saw a couple of them passing slips of paper around.

“What are they doing?” Ox—ever the anthropologist—asked.

“Taking bets” the Bellhop answered in a surprisingly soft voice.

“On what?” Willie asked.

The Bellhop showed his teeth. “Whether, when you leave, I escort you out the front or the back.”

“The back?” Oxley asked, clearly not comprehending. “What’s in the—”

Willie took hold of Ox’s arm and dug her nails in, shutting him up. Marion watched her smile slip for a second and she had a flash of insight into what the other woman was thinking. She _knew_ what it meant and she was scared—scared but savvy enough to play dumb.

The elevator stopped at the tenth floor and the Bellhop led them out and down the hall to room 1078. The carpets were a deep red—which was not unusual in itself, but Marion wondered if the shade had been selected specifically to hide an stains that might draw attention. When they reached the door the Bellhop stopped and straightened his green uniform jacket. He swallowed and then knocked three time. He was scared too, Marion realized.

Rapid chatter came from the other side, though Marion could not make out the language. The door opened and they were greeted by a burly Chinese man in his shirtsleeves, making no attempt to hide the shoulder holster and Colt under his arm.

“Mister Delacorte asked me to bring you these three. The dark haired woman is an associate of Jones and the blond is—”

“Willie Scott” came a voice from inside the room. The gunman stepped aside to reveal the speaker.

Willie shrieked. He was not very tall, and was balding slightly. His suit was quite nice, and evoked the look of Marion’s homegrown mobsters, though the man himself was Chinese like his guard. He had clearly made an effort to fit in with the rest of the Chicago underworld.

“Lao” Willie said, her voice shaking. “Long time no see.”


	5. High Tea at the Hotel Silver

**The Hotel Silver**

Marion had heard stories of Lao Che, the Shanghai Mobster who did a brisk business in the antiquities trade. The Museum had hosted an archeologist from Hong Kong a few years back, and she had quite a few stories, most of which would impress even the most hardened Cosa Nostra thug. Lao Che also had a reputation as the kind of mobster who fancied himself the heir to his country’s cultural heritage, like the Mafiosos who trafficked in Roman statuary and the Bratva who sought out relics of Ivan the Terrible. There was a medieval Chinese sword hanging on the wall that Marion guessed was as sharp as the day it had been forged.

Yet, despite being faced with a notorious mobster, five of his biggest goons, and a sword, the biggest shock of the day was that the vapid woman standing beside Marion knew Lao Che personally. The Concierge’s sudden acceptance to let them through now made sense.

Lao stood up, his thumbs tucked into the pocket of his waistcoat. He nodded at the bellhop, who ushered them across the threshold, gave a little bow, and shut the door behind them. The burly thug who had answered the door locked it and then drew his pistol and marched them into the center of the room.

It was a nice room. All the rooms in the Hotel Silver were nice. There was ample seating, and a fresh tea service had been laid out on the table. A balcony overlooked downtown Chicago, and Marion weighed their options of escaping that way should the need arise. She did not like their odds.

“Willie” Lao said, his voice deep and smooth. “I was given to understand you did not wish to continue our _partnership_.”

Willie kept her smile up, but Marion was starting to get a handle on the signs. She was playing it cool, but she was properly terrified.

“What can I say? I missed the States, the family farm…cows…” she mustered herself and upped the effort on her smile. “I’m really just here to help my friend. Some books of hers were taken, heirlooms from her dear departed—”

Lao snapped his fingers and one of his henchman produced a stack of old leather bound notebooks. Marion’s heartrate quickened. She would know them anywhere; be it sitting on her mother’s desk, as she scrawled furiously, making quick references to Greek texts before making more notes, or in the hands of a mobster.

“The research notes of Miriam Ravenwood.” Lao smiled. “When I heard the Germans were after them, I knew Doctor Jones would not be far behind. He and I have urgent unfinished business to attend to. But you know that Willie. So where is he?”

“Oh I kicked him to the curb a long time ago Lao. Nothing but trouble that one.”

Lao made a grumbling noise. “That is an understatement.”

_Damn_ , Marion thought, _this guy had definitely met Indy._ She took a chance and raised her hand ever so slightly.

“Those are actually my mother’s books. Now I doubt you have a stake in a Nazi treasure hunt one way or the other but—”

“These are your mother’s. You are Marion Ravenwood. Doctor Jones’…what is the English phrase… _paramour_.”

“It’s more of a French loanword,” Ox cut in. One glare from the burly mobster at the door made him clam up and train his gaze on his shoes.

“Yeah” Marion said. Pain welled up in her shin. It took her a moment to suss out that Willie had kicked her with the pointed tip of her shoe. She risked a semi-covert glance to her and caught what she thought might have been a _shut the hell up_ look. “Yeah, ex _paramour_. Last I heard he was shacked up with a switchboard operator at Bell. So you can bet that I want my mom’s books before that sly bastard tries to lay claim on them.”

Marion thought that was a decent cover story, but Lao appeared to have stopped listening. One of his men had come in from the next room and said something in a dialect Marion didn’t speak.

On the couch beside her, Marion saw Willie pucker her lips. “Shit.”

Lao turned back to them, straightening his suit. “I am going to ask you a question and I would hope you are more truthful than you have been thus far. Were you stupid enough to bring reinforcements with you to this hotel?”

“Mac, we could barely afford the taxi here. You think we’ve got the scratch to bring in _reinforcements_.”

“It’s preposterous” Ox put in, then, realizing he was speaking out of turn again, resumed looking at his shoes.

Lao shouted more orders to his men. “Well then, it would appear today is about to get very interesting.”

“Interesting how?” Marion demanded.

“Do you know what the relationship is like between my European counterparts and the fascist governments of Italy and Germany?”

Willie furrowed her brow. “Everybody’s gotta make a goddamn speech instead of getting to the point.”

“Very well. I’ll get to the point. They do not, in general, get along.”

Marion rolled her eyes. “And that’s relevant because?”

One of Lao’s lieutenants helped him don a leather shoulder holster like it was a silk jacket, and then handed him a very large pistol, which he loaded and dropped into the holster in a series of fluid motions.

“It is relevant because several Nazi operatives have just entered the hotel.” He glared at Marion. “I assume looking for you.”

Marion swallowed. “It’s a safe bet. What are the odds you don’t hand us over?”

At this Lao, to Marion’s great surprise, paused to think. “You called this a treasure hunt. Is there money in it?”

“Honestly,” Marion said as she decided whether to answer honestly, “I haven’t got a damn clue.” It may not have been the smart play, but she had grown up with stories of people who promised mobsters things they had no sure way of delivering and honesty now seemed better than fast talk later.

“But there’s professional bragging rights” Willie blurted out. Marion looked at her like she had lost her mind. “That son of yours…the one who…who isn’t dead…”

Lao glared at Willie. “I had _assumed_ you meant him.”

“Yeah well he…he’s studying to be a historian right? You always would send him out to get you’re uh…you’re art pieces.” Her eyes flicked to the sword. “Well help us get out of here alive and…and maybe to Egypt in one piece and we’ll…we’ll…”

“Throw him some very choice leads” Ox blurted out. “Leads upon which he can build a splendid career in academia. In fact,” Ox held up a finger, “I would also be perfectly willing…happy even…to put in a good word at any number of fine institutions. You know…why should Henry Jones have all the glory?”

_We’re dead_ , Marion thought. They had had a good run, but this was going to be it. They were going to ‘escorted out the back.’ Lao said something else to his men and Marion began wishing she had learned any dialect of Chinese when she and Abner were making their way through.

“We have an accord” Lao said, just as gunshots erupted from downstairs.

**Author's Note:**

> Savvy readers of the Indiana Jones supplementary media may note that I have aged Marion up slightly. This is because her age relative to Indy's as stated in the Lucasfilm timeline makes the start of their relationship feel kinda icky to me and since nothing in the movies or tv show or comics contradicts me, I'm choosing to imply that Marion was 18 when they meet. According to the Young Indiana Jones TV Series, Indy, in this chapter, is 17 years old and working as a translator at the Paris Peace Conference.
> 
> "Tarzan of the Apes" starring Elmo Lincoln in the title role was the first screen adaptation of Tarzan from 1918, before the more famous Johnny Weissmuller films.
> 
> Anyone who knows their Egyptology knows that Marion is not quite correct about the Valley of the Kings.
> 
> Heinrich Schliemann was one of the father's of modern archaeology in as much as he showed archaeologists all the things that one should never ever do to a site...this involved copious amounts of dynamite.


End file.
